Hollywood Spectator (1937-39)

Page Two December 10, 1938 ~y/rjj??L "the E D I TOR'S EASY CHAIR WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES AROUND . . . f\NE thing I do not like about the Christmas season ” is the fact that I must take advantage of it as an excuse for asking its readers to make me presents in the form of advertising in a Christmas Number. I could imagine no happier existence than putting one’s thoughts on editing a paper like the Spectator and having nothing to remind one that money is essential to its continued publication. The thought of money in no way influences the Spectator’s editorial policy, but money itself has a powerful influence on the printer who makes the paper a physical reality. He insists upon being paid for his work, but otherwise is a very nice fellow and is quite cheerful when I stick him for lunch when I go down town to stand him off. This year’s Christmas Number is now in preparation and I bespeak for it the generous patronage of those who think well of the Spectator. I feel it is the most valuable advertising medium for those who wish to direct attention to their screen activities. It is the only Hollywood film publication which mails over ninety per cent of its local circulation to the homes of subscribers, where it is read carefully and is not glanced at hastily, as is the lot of the publications which circulate in studio offices. * * * MEETS UNIVERSAL APPROVAL . . . UITE extraordinary was the reaction of Spectator readers to our plea in the last issue to the Jews who control films, to use the great medium of the screen on behalf of the sorely oppressed Jews in Germany. “As a Jew, I thank you,” is the terse message one of the leading producers sent me. Another phoned me that he was giving the matter serious consideration and that he would consult other producers regarding it. “The most practical, though the most intangible, suggestion yet made,” is a line from an approving note from a nationally known writer. “I have been opposed to propaganda films,” writes another, “but one of the sort you suggest is something Hollywood owes civilization.” My sug gestion was that the industry as a whole should make a picture touching briefly on the Hitler outrages, then showing Germany as a nation completely isolated from all others, cut off from all social or economic contact with other nations of the world. Like all the other countries, with the possible exception of the United States, Germany cannot live on what it can produce itself, consequently it soon could be starved into submission to any terms a coalition of other nations insisted upon. At present we have the spectacle of the leading nations seeking new homes for German Jews, thereby aiding Hitler in attaining the objective he aimed at from the beginning of his persecutions. German Jews should be permitted to live in Germany and Hitler should be made to like it. That was the idea I had in mind when I suggested the form an all-industry picture should take. Power of Public Opinion . . . ONE prominent director, while approving the Spectator article, expresses doubt of its efficiency. “I can’t quite see,” he writes, “how the crystalization of public sentiment in the United States — and every other country, of course — can affect Hitler in Germany. The picture you suggest would not be shown there.” My director friend overlooks the economic effect of national isolation, but I believe even a stronger force as a destroyer of national morale would be the united condemnation of the rest of the world. Public sentiment has no regard for boundary lines nor do custom regulations control its movement. Hitler already is feeling the pinch of it, but all his efforts to keep it, by censorship of papers and radio, from reaching the German population as a whole, cannot keep out of Germany the feeling that the rest of the world is condemning it. The reasons, therefore, for the economic isolation the picture would urge, could not be hidden from the population when it began to feel the lack of things it needs. Once they realize that Hitler’s treatment of Jews was responsible for the suffering of Gentiles, they surely would get rid of him. If they continued to endure him, it is only fair that they should endure the suffering that goes with him. I am fed up on reading that, “the German people as a whole do not approve of the persecution of Jews.” The majority in any country is solely responsible for anything which con HOLLYWOOD SPECTATOR, published bi-weekly, at Los Angeles, California, by Hollywood Spectator Co., Welford Beaton, Editor; Howard Hill, Business Manager. Office, 6513 Hollywood Boulevard; telephone GLadstone 5213. Subscription price, five dollars the year; two years, eight dollars; foreign, six dollars. Single copies twenty cents. Entered as Second Class Matter, September 23, 1938, at the Post Office at Los Angeles, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879.